Not brewing this weekend. Been cleaning/sanitizing kegs. Gonna keg and backsweeten a cider tomorrow night which I made with a local orchard's early blend (read: nice and tart). So the backsweetening should balance nicely with the tartness. I also have an American Brown (of sorts) finishing up fermentation which is loosely in the vein of Stone AB. But like was posted in a different thread today, I don't try to clone beers. I take something I like and try to make it my own. Whereas AB is by most accounts 2-row and Special B (and Chinook), I used 25% Munich , a little Biscuit, and cut back by half on the Special B. I think it'll work.

No brewing this weekend, but I have a lot of brewing activities in line for tomorrow. Going to rack my O' Christmas Tree Ale (spruce ale) and determine whether or not I want to add any juniper berries to it. I will also be racking my Red-Nosed IPA onto 2 oz cascade, 2 oz centennial, and an oz of chinook dry hops. I'm going to harvest the yeast from the IPA for an all Zythos IPA that I'm finally going to get around to here in a couple of weeks. But most importantly, I'm going to install all of the hardware into my keezer and have it up in running tomorrow by tomorrow evening. I will probably tap the pumpkin saison that has been kegged for awhile. Since I have no means of chilling it until the keezer is hooked up, I just moved it out to the porch to get it down closer to serving temperature so I can try it tomorrow night. If time permits, I might fire up the band saw and cut some red oak and/or walnut to make a few tasting flight paddles. I would like to bust out the lathe out and make some tap handles, but that's going to take some time so that's probably going to be held off until another weekend. Cheers!

I am on a brewing hiatus until mid or late December, when I'll brew a refill of my lambic solera and brew another lambic. I need to clear down some of my leftover bottles from this year's batches and get into a cask of imperial stout I brewed in May. I have a small batch of biere de mars I need to bottle soon. I might do that this weekend after I judge a homebrewing comp.

I am on a brewing hiatus until mid or late December, when I'll brew a refill of my lambic solera and brew another lambic. I need to clear down some of my leftover bottles from this year's batches and get into a cask of imperial stout I brewed in May. I have a small batch of biere de mars I need to bottle soon. I might do that this weekend after I judge a homebrewing comp.

I'm in a similar boat here. I have a bunch of stuff that needs to be bottled that I haven't had time for, but I haven't brewed for a few weeks now and it will be a few more before I get a chance to brew again. It is time to feed the house bug culture, so I might try to sneak in a weeknight brew night in the next couple of weeks of something sour-ish. Guess I'll be drinking down my commercial stockpile a bit until then...

Brewing up an Ordinary Bitter - got some biscuit malt and I am going to add it to Maris Otter, some crystal 60 and a pinch of Blackprinz. Hoping for the best, since I have the remnants of English Bitter Wyeast from a 10 gallon batch I racked this week out of the primary. I am switching to a fair number of ales for the winter - I can put the heater wraps on my fermenters and ferment nice and cool. A Scottish 60/- is coming up soon, too, since I harvested a batch from an 80/-; probably do that Friday after TG. Or maybe partigyle the Scottish with a big boy lead-off batch...to use up some Simpson's Golden Promise I have around.

Gonna keg and backsweeten a cider tomorrow night which I made with a local orchard's early blend (read: nice and tart). So the backsweetening should balance nicely with the tartness.

A few days ago I similarly kegged and back-sweetened an early fall hard cider. Drinking it tonight I find that with the tart, dry cider, the 2.5 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate per keg that I added is very good for my tastes. I wouldn't have wanted more, and not much if any less. I put the thawed concentrate in the bottom of the empty keg, racked the hard cider into it, sealed and first purged the keg of o2, and THEN shook the keg to distribute the concentrate prior to placing in the kegerator at 34F which is the temp I keep it at.

It's been way too long since the last time I brewed, and I lost my last batch to infection (FYI - cinnamon sticks do need to be sanitized), so I made up for it today with two batches. The first was a 70/- that turned into an 80/- since I misjudged my boiloff rate. This batch will be growing up a pitch of WLP028 for a Wee Heavy. The second was an oatmeal stout that is heavily inspired by Magic Hat's Heart of Darkness (well, other than the oatmeal part).

It made for a long brewday, especially with the 2-hour+ boil and caramelized runnings for the Scottish Ale, but it was nice to just lay low and watch the snow today.